IATA is the abbreviation of International Air Transport Association. It is a global commercial institution that only airline companies can become members of.
What is IATA? How to Apply for IATA? What are the IATA Membership Requirements? What are IATA Duties?
IATA is the abbreviation of International Air Transport Association. IATA, which only airline companies can become members of, is a Global commercial institution that aims to create economic, reliable and sustainable air transportation networks on a global scale. In line with these targets, IATA carries out its activities together with thousands of agencies around the world. IATA was founded in 1919 and took its current structure in 1945 after the second world war.
IATA Foundation and History
Today, IATA has 290 members from 120 countries. It was founded in 1945 in Hava, the capital of Cuba. Unlike all other airline companies, IATA, which aims to create a reliable and economic cooperation network in favor of consumers, had 57 members from 31 countries in 1945.
When it was founded, only airline companies in Europe were members. As of 1939, with the membership of Pan America, it had an identity between the continents. As time passed, the number of members increased, and thanks to IATA, a technical legal system was established in international aviation, and this system was completely protecting consumers. Apart from this, the duties and responsibilities of IATA started to increase with requests in international aviation activities.
Many questions arose, such as price studies, who can go where, how companies will share revenues on connecting flights, and how the financial relations between airline companies will be resolved. Today, IATA has made an international regulation regarding all these issues and has established an inspection mechanism and started to serve with this structure.
Apart from all these, IATA was accepted as the continuing structure of the international air traffic union established in The Hague in 1919, where the first scheduled international flight services in the world were made systematically, and it continues its services with this quality until today.
Where is IATA Headquarters?
IATA is currently headquartered in Montreal, Canada. IATA has administrative offices in Geneva, Switzerland. Apart from that, it has regional offices in many places such as Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Amman, Dakar, Nairobi, London, Singapore, Rio de JANERIO, Washington D.C.
What Is IATA Busy?
IATA international airline companies aimed to create a quality standard by making logical and executable studies for passengers and airports, bringing some regulations and realizing these ideals. With this aim, it made regular inspections and organized conferences by setting certain rules. The target of IATA was listed in the 1945 main contract as follows;
What are the Duties and Responsibilities of IATA?
The IATA tasks above were generally related to technical issues at first. However, in today's globalized age, with the expansion of international airline networks, their duties have increased and become more uncontrollable. In today's conditions, IATA has taken on quite a lot of responsibility in modern airline services. Some of these duties and responsibilities are:
What are the Conditions of IATA Membership?
IATA membership is a membership that only airline companies can apply for. Companies applying for this membership are required to have at least two years of experience in airline activities. To become a member, the airline company must pass the IATA Operations security audit and be registered in these systems. In addition, it is among the predictions that the company will repeat the IOSA audits every two years.
The application amount is requested from the airline company requesting membership of 15 thousand dollars without a refund, and 15 thousand dollars when the membership is accepted. Member companies pay an annual fee of approximately $13,000 to IATA. This fee is paid as a membership fee. In addition, each company pays 500 dollars to IATA as a contribution.
What are the Benefits of IATA Membership?
Airline companies that are members of IATA have a lot of advantages. The popularity and reliability of the member companies in the international arena increases and their costs decrease. Member companies benefit from communication campaigns, congresses, seminars and training programs on many subjects.
Which Airline Companies are Members of IATA in Turkey?
How are IATA Codes Determined?
The three-letter codes that IATA assigned to airports and airlines have become a common language of communication in aviation activities. These codes, which list the departure, destination and traffic documents of airline companies one by one, facilitate airline transportation in international channels.
Airline companies only use their own IATA codes for many jobs such as reservation, communication, planning, ticket issuing, cargo documentation. To give an example of these codes, THY's IATA code is TK Pegasus Airlines' PC. These two airline companies issue their tickets with this code. These codes are added per flight in order to facilitate the work of passengers and personnel in the sector.
IATA has also assigned codes to airports. For example, the code of "Charles de Gaulle Airport" in Paris is CDG, and the code of Ankara Esenboğa Airport is ESG. Anywhere in the world, passengers can identify the airports they are going to, regardless of which airline they are with, thanks to these short codes.
There is a specially created tag code for each baggage delivered for IATA flights. In this way, situations such as the loss of luggage are reduced to a very low level.
What is an IATA Agency?
The IATA accreditation, which can be obtained by cargo and travel agencies, aims to facilitate the business ties between agencies and airline companies. In addition, airline companies are offered the opportunity to be represented reliably in different corners of the world.
There are many advantages of institutions being IATA. Agencies that receive IATA accreditation hold the authority to sell international and business tickets of airline companies that are members of IATA. IATA accreditation can also access IATA's program called billing and reconciliation plans, which helps view invoices and fees between agents, airlines, and transportation providers.
The accreditation document provides agencies with the opportunity to be recognized on international contracts. It also has the right to use the IATA Logo in official correspondence. Agencies can also benefit from special discount campaigns of airlines due to IATA accreditation and have the chance to attend IATA trainings.
Agencies with IATA accreditation have their own IATA codes, such as airports and airline companies.
How to Become an IATA Agent?
In order to obtain IATA accreditation, which is accepted as a great image and prestige in the airline industry, the first condition that agencies must do is to obtain a travel agency operating certificate in the country they are located in. In addition, many documents are requested along with the application form.
A certain amount of payment is requested from the agencies that are candidate members at the time of application. The fees charged are different in each country. Member registration fees and annual membership fees are collected from the agencies that have been accepted.
IATA Environmental Policy
IATA has made some promises on global warming and aviation fuel. Member companies have agreed on the following items;
What are the Benefits of Being an IATA Cargo Agency?
What are the IATA Cargo Agency Terms?
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What are the Documents Required to Become an IATA Cargo Agency?
The total application amount was determined as 2495 Swiss francs. When the requested documents reach the IATA side, the invoice is sent to you.
In this case, the items to be considered;
After all these processes, after receiving the IATA "Hard Copy" form and confirming the conformity of all official documents, THY makes a request to the relevant units for your company to be audited. Inspections are carried out according to the density of THY employees. This period is between 20 or 30 days. If there is a density in THY, a representative from Turkey on behalf of IATA performs these inspections.
Supervision work is not given prior notice. However, if THY personnel will do the inspection, they will send you an e-mail in advance and make a general reminder about your documents. Auditing is usually not a problem, of course, your paperwork must be complete. In case of missing documents, you will be given additional time to complete these documents. If there is no problem with your documents, if you have complied with all the required criteria, IATA will send you a written IATA number and authorization. Genuine documents may take a while to arrive. The approval sent by IATA e-mail is sufficient for civil aviation.
Second Process to Become an IATA Cargo Agency
The validity period of the authorization certificate given to air cargo agencies is known as 5 years. At all airports where cargo agencies have obtained authorization certificates;
Apart from this, a personnel responsible for security should be appointed at the headquarters of the companies and the expert personnel assigned at the headquarters and branches should receive cargo security and civil aviation training. The personnel who will receive this training may be one of the existing personnel.
Cargo agencies must submit the documents and information listed below to the Ministry of Transport in order to have a certificate of authorization;
Apart from these, when the licensed agents obtaining the certificate of competence at the airport where the headquarters of the companies are located, and at the airports where the branches are present, when the competence document is requested only if the employee specified under the name of competence in the above-mentioned clauses is the authorized administrator, in addition to this, the documents requested in the clauses I and J must be submitted to the Ministry of Transport. available. In addition, the partners of the working company, which is declared as an expert, are requested only with the documents and information specified in clause B, which are notarized or with the approved certification of the relevant institutions.